Ferromagnetism in one-dimensional vanadium-benzene sandwich clusters

A molecular beam of multilayer vanadium-benzene organometallic complexes V n(C 6H 6) m was produced by a laser vaporization synthesis method. The magnetic moments of the complexes were measured by a molecular beam magnetic deflection technique, and were found to increase with the number of vanadium atoms in the cluster, showing that the unpaired electrons, which occupy the nonbonding d σ orbitals localized on the metal atoms, couple ferromagnetically. These sandwich species represent a new class of one-dimensional molecular magnets in which the transition metal atoms are formally zerovalent. Copyright © 2004 American Chemical Society.